another sunny afternoon
at present I am eating this odd jello-like substance that Sherly gave us. It comes in a little plastic container not unlike an ice cube tray, and tastes a little like coffee. We had our meeting with Dr. Su today and got to pitch our idea for giving a talk to the Young Holistic group about missions/world awareness. It will be fun I think! We probably won't be doing that until March though. We played with the puppies for awhile and even took one out for a bike ride in my basket!! It was cute, though she wasn't too excited about it... lol more confused at the change of scenery. This week hasn't been extremely exciting thus far, I teach tomorrow and Thursday.
Yesterday I did this crazy craft thing i got for Christmas from one of the families here, and let me tell you, it was hard! It's these two little chinese people, and it comes in a kit with all the materials that you have to put together. Unfortunately, the instructions are only in Chinese, so I did the best I could going by the pictures! They're not too bad from far away. I should mail some of those home, and see how the kids (or adults for that matter) do with them!
I got a card today from Carmen and Drake! It was exciting, I've actually been getting about 1 piece of mail a week, so if you're one of the people who's sent me mail, thank you! It's really encouraging! I'm sure it will slow down now that Christmas is over, but yeah, I've received mail from people I never expected to!
I was browsing through my old entries the other day, and I can see that the newness of this place has worn off... sorry for the lack of descriptions, though I suppose it is good that I got used to living here so quickly. I guess it's one of those things that you can't ponder too much (the fact that you live thousands of KM away from everything familiar), you just have to accept it, or else your ability to cope will be seriously hindered. You can read a hundred stories on ESL Cafe or other message boards about people who had bad experiences, or feel quite resentful toward the country they are living in. I wonder if with a bit more maturity and a willingness to cope, some of these issues would disappear. Culture shock is simply when the stress of circumstances that are alien or contradictory to your existing world view or values begins to manifest itself in negative ways. When you work and live in another culture, you are constantly under stress, it requires physical, mental, emotional and spiritual energy to understand, adapt or simply endure.
Yesterday I did this crazy craft thing i got for Christmas from one of the families here, and let me tell you, it was hard! It's these two little chinese people, and it comes in a kit with all the materials that you have to put together. Unfortunately, the instructions are only in Chinese, so I did the best I could going by the pictures! They're not too bad from far away. I should mail some of those home, and see how the kids (or adults for that matter) do with them!
I got a card today from Carmen and Drake! It was exciting, I've actually been getting about 1 piece of mail a week, so if you're one of the people who's sent me mail, thank you! It's really encouraging! I'm sure it will slow down now that Christmas is over, but yeah, I've received mail from people I never expected to!
I was browsing through my old entries the other day, and I can see that the newness of this place has worn off... sorry for the lack of descriptions, though I suppose it is good that I got used to living here so quickly. I guess it's one of those things that you can't ponder too much (the fact that you live thousands of KM away from everything familiar), you just have to accept it, or else your ability to cope will be seriously hindered. You can read a hundred stories on ESL Cafe or other message boards about people who had bad experiences, or feel quite resentful toward the country they are living in. I wonder if with a bit more maturity and a willingness to cope, some of these issues would disappear. Culture shock is simply when the stress of circumstances that are alien or contradictory to your existing world view or values begins to manifest itself in negative ways. When you work and live in another culture, you are constantly under stress, it requires physical, mental, emotional and spiritual energy to understand, adapt or simply endure.
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